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The 23rd Amendment

Then and Now

By Iria Vasquez-PaezPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution was passed on June 16th, 1960 and had to do with electors, as well as the right to the people living in the District of Columbia the right to vote in Presidential elections. The 23rd Amendment was ratified on March 29th, 1961. This Amendment refers to the fact that the Constitution provides each state with presidential electors that are equal to the number of seats that are put together in the Senate and House of Representatives, since the District of Columbia is not a State, which means it didn’t have electors prior to the adoption of the 23rd Amendment.

In the Constitution, it is said that each state needs a specific number of electors that is equal to the number of seats maintained in the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. Today, we are debating getting rid of the Electoral College altogether. Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes we do that. Here is why: swing states such as Florida get more focus because of their populations. Swing states help decide an election sometimes because you never know, whether that state will be Democrat or Republican.

Two-party politics is outdated though because we have an ability to get past that in the present. Voting across party lines sometimes makes people feel like they are betraying their party. The Electoral College has to be unpopular with Democrats, can we eventually move past silly party lines and conceive of a new way of voting? To abolish the Electoral College, we need to see a Constitutional Amendment. The 23rd Amendment’s clause involving electors was originally based on population, but these days, we have a means of abolishing the Electoral College altogether. The reason: to help candidates maintain a win of the popular vote.

What determines the election win would be the victor with the popular vote. 12 states have a law against the Electoral College system, including large states such as California and New York. However, the District of Columbia is not an actual State, which means it does not get an electoral vote. The electoral vote has mostly to do with the population of a State granting how many electoral votes the State gets. The early situation of the District was that it was rural, deemed too small to have an actual vote. And now the District is a large city, rather like Stanford, CA or Hollywood, CA, but with electoral representation.

Today, the Electoral College is something being hotly debated in our country, by Democrats. Washington D.C. has been our government headquarters since the very beginning when George Washington established it. The 23rd Amendment made D.C. a partial state with three electors granted to it. In addition, the District of Columbia has a majority black population, making it prone to discrimination. There was also a 1978 Amendment giving the District of Columbia a vote in Congress, which was never ratified. The situation that the District of Columbia has going for it, is actually due to institutional racism. The racism that says if you are black, you barely get a vote. Yes, there are many things that could or need to change our Constitution. The Electoral College can swing a vote from Democrat winning their popular vote to a Republican winning the Electoral College vote. The Electoral College is a process and consists of selected electors, 538 of them, who vote with 270 electoral votes required to elect a President. A state Governor prepares a “Certificate of Ascertainment” after each presidential election, for each presidential candidate who runs for office in the state. The meeting takes place on the first Monday after the 2nd Wednesday, in December, after the presidential vote has taken place in November.

Works Cited

What is the Electoral College?

Twenty-third Amendment

Wikipedia

Time

Vox

legislation
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About the Creator

Iria Vasquez-Paez

I have a B.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State. Can people please donate? I'm very low-income. I need to start an escape the Ferengi plan.

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